Rural Integrated Climate Adaptation and Resilience Building Project (RICAR)

The overall goal of this project is to enhance adaptive capacity of rural populations in The Gambia through support to climate-resilient and diversified livelihoods. The target group of the Rural Integrated Climate Adaptation and Resilience Building Project (RICAR) for concrete adaptation activities is smallholder farmers and other vulnerable rural groups, who are already at risk from climate variability and change, with an emphasis on women and youth. The project focuses on a limited number of localities in order to maximize impact in two of the country’s six regions, namely Upper River Region (URR) and Central River Region (CRR). Both regions are highly climate vulnerable, with high levels of poverty, chronic food insecurity, malnutrition, and environmental degradation. They experience considerable barriers to adaptation to climate change impacts, yet have the potential for increased climate-resilient agricultural production, as they have relatively fertile lowland soil, and for livelihood diversification.